In late 1896 novelist Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage, was stuck waiting in Jacksonville for his passage to Cuba, where he planned to work as a war correspondent. Biding his time in the local brothels, he met and fell in love with Cora Taylor, madam of the Hotel de Dream, who would later become his wife. A few days after he left for Cuba his vessel shipwrecked, and after taking to sea in a dinghy and swimming ashore at Daytona, he wired Taylor for help. She came and fetched him and they returned together to Jacksonville.